Degrees, Money and the Future

For a long time, it was politically incorrect to protest the huge increase in university/college attendance across developed nations in Europe and North America. University attendance went from approximately 14% in the 1970s to over 40% today. Tony Blair famously wanted 50% of youngsters to attend university. A degree was lauded as a springboard to socio-economic mobility, and graduates were supposed to boost GDP growth and tax revenues by taking up high-skilled jobs.

But the reality is turning the dream into a nightmare. The sad truth is that the number of graduates exceeds the number of graduate jobs, and many graduates—particularly from some of the humanities and social sciences—end up under-employed. Furthermore, the burden of college debt acts like a vice on the economy. It doesn’t matter whether the debt is private debt (like in the US) or public debt (like in most European countries). Most obviously, debt harms consumption. It has knock-on social effects on fertility and demographics; young people burdened with debt start a family later (or don’t start it at all), and struggle to afford a house. Moreover, from a macroeconomic perspective, the loans are dangerous, since a lot of them are bad—that is to say, many debtors won’t repay the full amount, or the interest, or repay within the expected maturity period.

The hard truth, that young people, parents, and policymakers don’t want to hear, is that high-skilled, university-level jobs make up at best 20% of the available jobs. I am also highly skeptical that this will increase in the future. The percentage may increase, but only because the total number of jobs will decrease as more jobs are destroyed by automation (high-skilled jobs are much more resistant to the effect of automation). The jobs that require a degree are highly technical and/or vocational: medicine, pharma, nursing, dentistry; programming; engineering; data science; and so on.

Automation, AI and the post-scarcity economy are things that have been discussed elsewhere in more detail than I will go into here. The long and short of it is: we are heading towards are a post-scarcity economy. We are not there yet, and the process will take time. Also, let me be clear that a post-scarcity economy does not mean the end of scarcity; some goods and services will remain scarce, but the majority will be available in abundance. To give you an idea: food, energy and consumer goods will be abundant. Heck, they are already pretty abundant right now. Have you ever seen a shortage of nails? Nails, like many other goods, can be mass-produced for a very low price, and they require almost no human input in their creation. Other things will remain more scarce, especially things that require a lot of high-skill human labour.

That’s the key, the salient point of this little essay: labour. Historically, we have regarded labour, work, as something valuable and worthy. An entire religion, Protestantism, revolves around the value of work. Work means steady payment; a livelihood. But labour is inherently tied to scarcity. Humans have to labour because things are scarce: food, shelter, medicine and so on. So what happens when all the work is done by robots and software? Let’s assume that everything could be done by robots or computers, just for the purposes of this thought experiment.

Ideally, we would live in a utopia; humanity would never want for anything. In reality, the barrier lying between us and this utopian vision is capitalism. We admire capitalism because it has worked well for the last two centuries or so—with government regulation and the managing of natural monopolies, of course. Adam Smith was more or less right. He was misunderstood by the braying free market neoliberals; Adam Smith never argued that the “invisible hand” would make markets self-regulating in general (only if a very specific set of criteria were fulfilled). A mixed market+command economy is the way to go. This is something that France, the UK, Scandinavia and Germany understood, but which the US and Soviet Union did not.

Unfortunately, I think the economic model of the past century may no longer function in this post-scarcity future, because it is still predicated on the idea of renumeration for labour. To put it bluntly: in the future, many, perhaps most, of the population will be unemployed. They will be unemployed for no other reason than that they will have nothing to do.

I believe that we will need a Universal Basic Income at some point in the not-too-distant future. Moreover, I think a successful economic model of the future will still have capitalism (i.e. capital, companies, competition etc.) but in a far more diminished way. Capitalism will be limited to areas of rapid innovation, scarcity, and high differentiation. Everything else will be administrated by organs of the state, be it local, regional or national governments. Money will still exist, so this will be socialism, not communism. The state already administers 40–50% of the economy measured by GDP, so this should not be a big pill to swallow (newsflash, Americans). Why will it be adminstered by the state, you ask?

This leads onto the next point. Capitalism is unstable and destructive. It creates a small number of winners and a large number of losers. (Sorry, right-wing Americans.) In the future, this tendency will be exaggerated until society will fray apart. An industrial reserve army of the unemployed—an army of losers—will be created. There are only three possible scenarios. One, capitalism tries to maintain itself through coercion. Two, socialism prevails. Or three, massive social unrest results in anarchy, and the post-scarcity economy is destroyed, bringing us back to the status quo ante… by which I mean something before 1770: the medieval world. This scenario seems more likely in third world countries that are politically unstable.

Let’s go back to square one, and the original point of this essay. More university degrees will not lead to better pay or employment. There are powerful economic and technological forces at play that are leading us to a world with high unemployment. Instead of creating more debt and broken dreams, policymakers need to focus on managing the transition to a post-scarcity economy based on UBI, the provision of basic goods, and reduced inequality.

What does this look like, in practical terms? Well, it won’t be a world of perfect equality. I don’t believe such a thing is possible or even desirable—and I say this as a staunch socialist. Natural inequality is the reality of the world we live in. Some humans are smarter than others, or more talented, or hardworking; they should be rewarded. So the economic situation will look like this. Everyone will be guaranteed a basic income of, say, 2000 euro a month. They can earn extra by participating in the labour market when possible. Some people will earn high salaries, like 3K, 4K, 5K a month because they do something difficult (and they will pay taxes on their income). And there will be a few millionaires or billionaires, but fewer than there are today. The state’s revenues will shift from being predominantly taxation funded to being funded more by the sale of goods, e.g. food and housing. This is because there won’t be enough taxpayers to fund public goods like healthcare and (obviously) UBI itself otherwise.

Money is hard to understand for the layperson. Money is not scarce; it can be created at will. But scarce things do have a higher price. This is why creating more money causes inflation: there is more money, but the number of goods does not increase.

How can the state fund UBI? It’s not through taxation: you can tax UBI, but since that money comes from the government, there is no mathematical way to fund UBI with itself. Rather, the state can simply print money and ensure that the supply of goods (which it controls) matches up. The state will also tax corporations that make large amounts of money through the sale of goods and services. This system will ensure that basic goods are provided, but also that people have disposable income to spend on more whimsical things—art, fine dining, holidays, whatever—at their discretion. Remember that this will not be a truly post-scarcity society, just a “mostly” post-scarcity one. Provided that the money supply is managed sensibly, this system will work very well.

Now that I think about it, this system could already be partially implemented in the world we live in today, since we are already approaching post-scarcity in some ways. But to accomplish this, we have to have political awareness. We cannot allow our politicians to further the interests of the rich, and pull the wool over our eyes. People are not unemployed because they are lazy, or because they don’t have a degree, or because they don’t know how to code. Only 1% of the population knows how to code, and demand is at most 2 or 3%. People are unemployed because of technological growth.

Some people will not like what I am saying about degrees. Humanities people in particular think that humanities degrees are being devalued in favour of STEM. But actually my argument has nothing to do with funding one or the other. It is true that humanities degrees do not pay as well as (most) STEM degrees, so that is a good argument to avoid going into debt for one. But I would very much be in favour of subsiding degrees so that the best humanities students can study for free. The real problem—which I want you, the reader, to understand—is when we make 1 in 2 youngsters get a degree just for the sake of it. Believe me, all those psychology students (psychology is one of the most popular majors) don’t really want to be doing a degree; they just want to party. Them getting a degree, however, prejudices bright students who are genuinely interested in learning. It strains financial resources and devalues the worth of a degree.

Thanks for reading this far. If you have some thoughts to share, please comment below.

Fallen Desire is coming along nicely

Hello readers!

I want to share with you all a brief update regarding Book II, my future plans for the series, and some of my upcoming life events.

I’ve written 60,000 words and have finished Part One of the story, which is wonderful! A great many events that I’ve been planning, foreshadowing, or teasing the reader about are now coming to fruition. The entirety of Part Two is plot, action, resolution—all the good stuff. While worldbuilding and characterisation occupied much of Fallen Love and some of Fallen Desire, this is where it all comes together.

Do I know when I will finish? No. Despite my good progress, I have a Master’s degree incoming, plus this book is no paperweight. I anticipated it would be around 90,000 words, and right now it looks like it could easily be 100,000. Is there a Book 3 in the works? Well, there might be a prequel novella. (Maybe.) But the buck ends here.

Speaking of master’s degrees, I have decided to study Business and Data Science at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. You could think of it as an MBA with an MSc; it’s two years long, 9 months of which is made up by internships. While business is a straightforward subject for yours truly (I’m an economist remember?) the data science component will require me to brush up on my Python and statistics. Not to mention the dreaded linear algebra and calculus.

At the moment, however, I’m busy trying to find housing. This is, of course, a pain in the behind.

Anyway, I have one more piece of good news: I have a new fan! Her name is JR Vaineo, and she’s a fantasy writer too, so check out her books. I’ll probably republish the review here on the Magical Realm. Stay put!

Big News: Fallen Desire is coming out with Terran Empire Publishing!

Hello faithful readers!

I am announcing my new publishing contract with Terran Empire Publishing, a small press based in California (though my relationship with them started well before the publication of this book). I have recently signed a publishing contract with them for the rights to Fallen Desire, Book 2 in the Fallen series. I already announced this on my mailing list and social media, so I might as well do it on the Magical Realm. I will use this as an opportunity to briefly delve into some additional detail.

What does publishing a book actually mean?

In legal terms, a publishing contract is an agreement whereby the Author sells the rights for a written work to the publisher, in exchange for royalties and possibly an advance. (That’s a test good contracts must meet: there should be a quid pro quo.) But what does that actually entail? Why would I do this instead of just publishing it on my own like I did the Necromancer and Fallen Love?

Well, it boils down to a few different important advantages and one major disadvantage. The disadvantage is that my royalties per book are about half what they would be if I self-published. The advantages are numerous:

1. I get free editing! Which is great, because editing—particularly developmental or story editing—costs a lot of money otherwise. It’s probably the single biggest added value service in addition to a cover.
2. I get a book cover! And I don’t have to pay for it out of my own pocket.
3. The publisher has a physical presence in California, which is important for selling to bookshops. They also make my book known at local conventions that, for obvious reasons, are very difficult for me to attend (I live halfway across the world).
4. Translation into Spanish is a possibility.
5. And finally, I get someone to market for me! This is such a pain in the ass to do on my own.

Why Terran?

Why not any other publisher? We were already working together as I was doing some data analysis work for them. They pitched me an offer for the 2nd book; I decided it looked good. They were also open to negotiation; that meant I got a very solid contract with clear expectations, and no nasty loopholes.

So how is Book II coming along?

Pretty well, for the most part. I have written more than 50,000 words, and I’ve almost finished the first round of edits. I do my first round of editing once I reach the halfway point (more or less) in order to fix problems as they crop up: I mop up everything from typos and worldbuilding inconsistencies, to characterisation issues and plot holes.

I could in principle wait until I finish writing the story and have my publisher do all this, but I prefer to resolve issues as they come up, because that makes writing the end much easier for me. As it is, I probably will send the manuscript to the publisher in a few weeks.

I am cautiously optimistic that the book will be ready in a couple of months; I expect it will be around 90,000–100,000 words. It will definitely be bigger than Book 1, but I’m just not sure how much bigger.

Any other news?

I’m preparing for my MSc in Data Science and Business, which is going to be a lot of work. Arranging housing is next on the list.

I was supposed to get my driving licence this year, but will I? I’m not sure. The whole coronavirus pandemic has delayed an already slow, bureaucratic process. Since my MSc is non-negotiable, I have to leave in August.

But hey, I’m staying positive! I’ve been working out for the past 2 months. (What else was I supposed to do? Go crazy in quarantine?) I am now the proud owner of a six-pack, which feels pretty statuesque—a feat I attribute to low body fat and smart exercise. Now I’m working on my biceps, triceps, deltoids, and pectoralis major. Plus my transverse abdominis—a tricky muscle to work.

(Alex, as you might have noticed, is obsessive. When he strives to complete a task, he does it, and he does it well. Even if it means metamorphosing from a book nerd into a fitness freak.)

Finally, one more piece of good news: my hair is growing back! In particular, my forehead and temple hair is thickening—hair that I lost in the past two years due to AGA, aka male pattern baldness. How long will I maintain a full head of hair? That I do not know, so I’m going to relish my hair while it lasts.

Now I must return to my writing. Until next time!

My Experience at AUC: A Review

As promised, I am writing a review of my experience at AUC—including the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. I have given similar feedback in the evaluation form I was sent, so the information presented here has already been communicated via the official channel. Instead, this blog post is written partly as an introspective essay, and partly as a guidebook to future AUC students.

The Good

The best thing about AUC is the student community. The environment is co-operative: think MIT rather than investment bank. Some students are academically gifted and help other students, but even the weakest AUC students possess something uncommon—initiative. Entrepreneurialism is cliché, and it’s not the best description here; we AUC students don’t start companies (this is not a thing in the Netherlands) but we do organise events, sing, write, go to festivals, and chair lots of committees.

The curriculum is interdisciplinary, at least much more so than at comparable universities. The course is demanding and hard, but also intellectually satisfying. The AUC faculty teachers are really good—I studied under a lawyer who is foremost in his field of environmental law, for example. One of my teachers is a prominent climate scientist in the Netherlands; another is a best-selling writer and human rights advocate. All of them are good teachers as well as academics; they’re obviously passionate about interacting with the students, and the students are happy to ask questions or pose criticisms.

We have graduates from Stanford, Cornell and Leiden in the faculty. The number of AUC students that obtain master’s degrees from the likes of Oxford, Cambridge or HEC is remarkable given that AUC only graduates about 300 students a year.

The Bad

Academically, the programme suffers from two problems: there’s too much work (and stress), and the quality of courses offered by outside professors is too variable. I won’t name courses or professors here, but one course I took at AUC was more like a high school class than a university-level class at one of the country’s most prestigious schools.

The workload is a well-known issue—AUC themselves basically admit it—and the stress takes its toll on many students. A survey reported by our student newspaper indicates that mental health issues are probably pretty common, and stress is the foremost issue in student life. Speaking personally, it’s not just the amount or the difficulty of assignments that’s stressful—though some exams and assignments were difficult, and sometimes I did have an awful lot of assignments. It’s also the way the assignments and exams are structured: the assignments are usually due at midnight. Not infrequently, on weekends. Exams can be early in the morning (I had one at 8:30am) or as late as 6–7:30pm.

The AUC experience is chaotic, in other words. It also doesn’t help that university’s administration is likewise chaotic and disorganised: the rules are many, important information is not always communicated on time, and some very bizarre decisions are taken with respect to retakes or grade equivalencies from semesters studied abroad. I myself contested an economics paper grade, and ended up having to write a new paper over the summer. Not fun.

The Downright Ugly

The ugliest thing about AUC is not actually AUC, but rather, DUWO—the company responsible for student accommodation. All AUC students have to live in the dorms, so there is no way to avoid dealing with this bunch of losers. Their incompetence verges on the comical, and I could write a long litany of all the things I hate about them. This is but a brief list, covering the greatest iniquities:

• Repeated breakdowns in the hot water system. Sometimes this lasted a couple of hours in a localised part of the dorms, but once, all of the dorms didn’t have hot water for 2 or 3 days.

• Repeated breakdowns of the lift: good luck getting your bike to the 3rd or 5th floor.

• Lack of communication, and stubborn idiocy on the other end of the line.

• Electronic keys that stopped working.

• Poor quality washing machines. They didn’t allow us to use our own washing machines, either.

• A bathroom with no light fixtures or ventillation; a linoleum floor that was always dirty even if you just cleaned it.

If I had to pick one ugly thing about AUC, however, it would be the way they deal with struggling students. As of 2020, students who need an extra semester to graduate need to move out of the dorms and find housing on their own. Retakes are officially forbidden, so hope you don’t screw up an exam.

Conclusion

I ultimately enjoyed my time AUC, and survived the more difficult periods. I have just graduated cum laude with a high GPA—enough to meet the minimum requirements for Oxford. Nevertheless, I cannot recommend AUC to just anyone. It’s obvious that academic ability is required (any good university requires this), but the experience is also unnecessarily stressful. By the end of my studies, I was exhausted.

The Bullshit of Academia

Hello intrepid reader!

It has been a long while since I last published a post here on the Magical Realm, and this has been because of—wait for it!—my university. In its usual way, the university has left me stressed out, in doubt, and wondering what to do next. Partly, it’s avoidable mismanagement on the side of both the university and the housing association: I am meant to be moving out on the 15th of July, but I have no idea who the new tenant will be, and I have a lot of furniture I need to sell. Naturally, my room came completely unfurnished; were I to extend the luxury of furniture to the new tenant, both of us would benefit. Instead I must live with the uncertainty.

Then there’s the idiotic choice of dates: I will have my graduation ceremony on the 1st July, my final internship report the day before, and have only two weeks to move out. This is despite the fact that the first years start intro week at the end of August. The rationale? None. Or at least, none that a sane person could comprehend.

It gets worse: although I have to move out on the 15th of July, I don’t get my official diploma until August 30th. What the hell does my university think I’m going to do in the intervening six weeks? (Hint: it’s not holidays or travelling. A great deal of bureaucracy must be conquered in order to have the diploma delivered by post.)

Still, the title of this post does not single out my university in particular (although, buyer be warned). Rather, there is an underlying problem here, common to many universities across the globe: the bullshit of academia.

Teaching Useless Skills

I have spent a great deal of time and effort, during the past 3 years, in perfecting skills that will be useless later on in my career. I speak here of such things like citation styles (an archaic mess that belongs in the 7th circle of Hell); or the various muddled conventions of academic writing, like passive voice; or indeed the whole sorry mess of journals, impact ranking, H-index, et cetera ad nauseam.

All practical applications of writing—i.e writing that people want to read and which makes money—follow conventions that oppose the dictums of academic writing. I am not referring to such things alone as writing a novel, essays, or journalism pieces; indeed, business writing, too, shares more similarities with a journalism entry than your typical academic paper. Practical writing uses active voice; the intent is to sell something, be it a story, your CV, or a product. Good writing gets to the point. When presenting an argument, the reasoning must be comprehensible and the conclusions clear.

The weasel words of academia—“generally”, “this indicates that”, or, my favourite, “to what extent”—have no place in business writing. Superfluous jargon or verbiage, likewise, must face the guillotine. (I exclude technical terms here, which are necessary in order to be precise.)

Teaching Useless Courses

Another pet favourite of liberal arts courses is the teaching of superficial nonsense courses as general requirements. In my case, it was such wonderful things as: “the Global Identity Experience”; “Big Questions in Future Societies”; or Advanced Research Writing. (ibidem)

The problem, let me be clear, is not always the material itself. It is instead its superficiality. Philosophy of science, for example, is a huge discipline with a rich and wonderful history. (And plenty of real-world applications, for that matter.) Yet its treatment in Global Identity did not do it any justice. Qualitative methods, likewise, is a practical course, but covered insufficiently.

Creating Knowledge (not)

The crux of my criticism against academia, as taught in undergraduate courses, is that it inculcates bad habits in students in order to succeed in the academic game; that it teaches certain important topics too superficially, and places too much attention on unimportant things; but my argument also contains a distinctly scientific criticism.

Academics like to delude themselves into believing that they create knowledge. From the perspective of epistemology, it is obvious that the purlieu of academia only covers propositional knowledge, and not other forms of knowledge which are valuable in the pursuit of human flourishing (for example, practical knowledge, moral knowledge, or friendship). Economists like Hayek will tell you—correctly, in this case—that the private sector is also responsible for creating a great deal of knowledge.

But even with these caveats, there remain more problems for academia. The first is one of social conventions—I refer, once more, to the aforementioned passive voice, citation styles, and pretentious journals. These social conventions are dangerous enough on their own. In order:

• Passive voice obscures the nature and strength of the claim being made. Exempli gratia, “Results indicate that the prevalence of rape culture on campus is proportional at 25% (95% confidence interval: 21–29%).” Active voice: “A small-sample size questionnaire with dubious methodology, carried out by feminists with an agenda, found that approximately one quarter of women on campus were raped.”
• Rick & Morty (2000) found that stress made consumers less likely to judge information correctly... versus... A study, “The Effects of Stress on Consumer Behaviour” (1) found that stress made consumers less able to judge information correctly. (Guess what: author name and year tells me absolutely nothing about the the claim being made. Give me a useful description and number your reference list!)
• Pretentious journals, or journals with no standards. One rejects potentially valuable research on technicalities. The other publishes crap. Naturally, everyone wants to get published in the pretentious journals, which, via supply and demand, are given even more power to enforce pointless requirements.

Another problem, well documented by this point, is the “neo-liberalisation” or industrialisation of research output. This is a topic all of its own, and one that I cannot cover in sufficient detail within this mere blog post. I only point to the effect: a huge amount of research is published, much of it unreadable by laymen or non-specialists, and whose scientific merit is difficult to evaluate.

So what to do?

I often see that academics are reluctant to suggest solutions to a problem, either relying on weasel words (“x and y claims are subject to further research...”) or leaving it to someone else (“policymakers”, whatever that means). I don’t have all the answers, but I can suggest some obvious first steps. To begin with: academia and academic teaching should collaborate much more closely with business, industry and successful professionals. Academia is not real life, but real life has a lot to teach academia.

Secondly, scrap the archaic citations, academic verbiage, and passive voice.

I promise you that not only will academia benefit, but students too.

Yours truly,
A frustrated student.

I’m back

Hail readers!

I must apologise for having taken so long to return to blogging. Several things have conspired against me; I will summarise the problems briefly. Firstly, university, with its litany of papers, exams, and other work-related demands. Secondly, my photography—a new hobby that has taken up time and money, but which is, I suppose, necessary to keep my mind active and buzzing with ideas. Finally: I’m still trying to get Fallen Love published. I have therefore submitted to a number of independent publishers and agents.

I wish to return, then, to discuss my goings-on and life in general. Those of you who have followed my blog and writing adventures will be right at home; otherwise, simply read a few posts from the archive if you want to get up to speed. Additionally, I’ll add a few choice words to the connection between writing and photography—a topic I have touched upon before, but which has gained increasing importance now that I’m spending so much money and creative energy into it. Don’t worry: it’s good for my writing as well as my visual skills.

Life

There is a debate in aesthetic philosophy regarding the extent to which art is representation—or if it is representation at all. It’s a commonly held belief that fiction is inspired by life; but the word inspired can mislead here. Some things in life do inspire me, yet the link is often abstract, its origin mysterious. Then there’s the simple fact that a lot of things in life are antithetical to art: bureaucratic papers, for example, or never-ending work.

It’s unfortunate that the last few months have been more of the latter than the former. Being in my third year of university has something to do with it, as does the simple fact that I’ve not been writing seriously. It’s as if I’m living my life on autopilot: I take care of myself, do work and chores, but nothing about my actions is important. Writing gives me purpose; without it I am lost.

It does not help that I am struggling to feel enthusiastic about my courses. They are not difficult—if anything the opposite is true: they don’t challenge me enough. I don’t feel like I’m exploring new frontiers in my knowledge, or gaining valuable and skills and insight. Although courses like programming were time-consuming and sometimes frustrating, I did learn stuff.

The concept of equilibrium also has a role to play. The last two and a half years have challenged me in a number of ways, but I have now adapted to the challenges as best I can, and there have been no major departures from this equilibrium state. While this is not the same as being unchanging (there have been many changes as of late) this kind of life does nevertheless entail a certain taedium vitae.

To put it more simply: I need something new. Something wild and magical.

Photography and Writing

There are few writers who are great photographers, and photographers rarely write well; it would seem, then, that there is no connection between these two disciplines, or even that they are mutually exclusive. This, however, would be drawing a hasty conclusion. The relationship between photography and writing is complicated, but often fruitful.

Ansel Adams, the famous American landscape photographer of the last century, wrote of the importance of previsualisation: the act of imagining the image you want to make, and setting up your equipment to achieve that creative vision. The same technique applies to writing—the greatest mistake a writer can make is not having a plot, a character motive, or, most importantly, a story. A bad book is much like a snapshot; it is aimless and boring.

The real difference between photography and writing—this will, by the way, annoy some photographers—is in the gear. Frankly, photography is an expensive hobby because it demands expensive equipment. Good luck trying to shoot a puffin in flight without a good telephoto lens and a fast DSLR. (If it’s around dawn or dusk, that won’t be enough, and you’ll need to shelve a couple of grand for a super-telephoto lens.) If your subject is in low light or high dynamic range, you’re going to want an expensive camera with a large sensor. Even the price of peripherals like filters or tripods (or flashes!) can give newcomers a heart attack.

On the other hand, huge bestsellers like Harry Potter were written on a typewriter by a single mum on benefits. The difference is stark.

If you are privileged enough to be able to afford photography, though, it is a satisfying art form to work with, and generally less stressful than writing. Expectations, of course, play a role: with photography, I am content to sometimes lose a shot. Difficult light, and inclement weather (think 60mph gusts and sub-zero temperatures) all play a role.

When you’re writing at my standard, though, there is much less room for error. A typo is trivial to correct, but a cliché you missed, an awkward line of dialogue here—or a chapter that doesn’t fit into the narrative—and you’ve potentially lost an editor.

Concluding thoughts

I must abandon you once again, dear readers, for work beckons. I hope I have made my somewhat scattered thoughts clear for you. There are no guarantees as to when I will write once again on the Magical Realm, but if things go according to plan, it will be sooner rather than later.

Until then!

Now it begins...

Hello readers!

There is a considerable amount of news I wish to relay today; therefore, I will start in order of importance. The first and most notable event is my completion of the second draft of Fallen Love. My new novel has been revised significantly—plot points have been simplified and streamlined, character voice has been rethought, and numerous improvements to the fluency of the writing have been made.

The second draft is what I consider to be “ready for viewing”: that is to say, it is significantly more polished than the first draft, and its overall plot structure and character arc closely resembles the final product. (Or so I hope, anyway!) It will, of course, still have to be edited: I am hoping to receive editorial guidance from the publisher who ultimately accepts it for publication. My agent may also have some changes to propose.

Speaking of agents, I have queried several. They are, of course, slow to reply—and by the nature of the modern publishing industry, most of them will reject me. That’s okay; I only need one, after all. Even Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, received 14 rejections from agents before being represented.

This is why I’ve chosen to title this post “Now it begins...” I have completed another major milestone in my journey—but the way is long. From now on in, it’s a waiting game. So to help you wait, I have updated the page named “Fallen Love” with the new blurb and revised first chapter. Enjoy! (And if you wish to give me feedback, look to the “Contact” page for ways to get in touch with me.)

In other news, I am currently in Romania for the winter holidays. I am soon to return to Amsterdam, where I shall begin learning Spanish before starting my second semester.

To be perfectly honest, this year’s first semester was not easy going. Despite my rather good grades (A, A, A- and B+) it came at a considerable personal cost—to my health especially. My frequently-melancholy self was too stressed, and too preoccupied, with the substantial number of exams, essays and papers. I even developed a minor drinking problem: thankfully, my appetite for alcohol has diminished, and I have drank only a little this holiday period.

But enough about that. I will get through this degree one way or another (it is really only a question of whether I will do well or exceptionally well).

Fallen Love is where my passion really lies–it is the product of more than a year’s work, not to mention the year and a half I spent working on its abandoned predecessor (the Ark, if you recall). There were times when I never thought I’d finish it; there were times when the rest of my life seemed too pressing, too difficult, and overwhelming.

So let me start 2018 with a promise: it’s time to have some fun and relax. Now it begins...

A Festive Season

Hail readers!

It is winter at last, and the weather here in Amsterdam has been... atrocious. It started out well: we had a beautiful day of sunshine on the 1st of December. The second day of December saw fog, albeit rather beautiful fog (as my photos, to be uploaded later, will attest to). Alas these past few days have degenerated into pouring rain—intermixed with hail—howling wind and cold. Alex is indeed rather miserable.

What adds to his misery is that he has altogether too much work to do: he has already done one exam and presentation today, with two more written exams and one oral left. On top of that, he has one more essay to write, and a statistics project to finish.

For these reasons, Alex has been unable to work much on Fallen Love. He is more than halfway through, but recent progress has stalled, and will only really take off again at the end of this month.

Still: there’s no point being grumpy. ’Tis a festive season, after all. This brief update will therefore finish with an excerpt from Fallen Love:

“You wanted to kill him, didn’t you?” I ask. “Not because you should, but because you could.”

“My dad was right about this much. It’s part of me, Conall: the desire to kill. It’s in my nature, like a cat catching mice.”

“But do cats ever become friends with mice?”

“That’s the million euro question, isn’t it?”

I embrace him, suddenly, unable to contain it any longer. His hair is soft against my hands; his body is still and statuesque.

“Make me a millionaire, Mark.”

“Oh, I think you already are, Conall.”

Why Economic Models are Bullshit (Part II)

Hello readers!

Previously, I wrote a post entitled “Why Economic Models are Bullshit (Part I)”. Therein, I covered one of the problematic areas of macroeconomics: namely, that students are badly taught the subject. But that does not tell us enough about the other side of the coin—the reason why macroeconomic models are, by themselves, problematic (aka “bullshit”). In this post, I explain just this.

Before I begin, and in case you are wondering: yes, I am progressing with Fallen Love. I am about halfway through the revision process; I will post an update later on. For the time being, I am extremely busy both with the book and with my university studies. Consider this my final update for the month.

Anyway, onto the topic of today’s post...

The Follies of Macroeconomic Models

I am not the first to criticise an economic model, and in particular, I am not the first to criticise the discipline of economics as a whole. Some critics speak from a position of ignorance; they sometimes make good points, but cannot articulate their criticisms beyond relatively vague generalities. (A few examples: economic models don’t work because you can’t put people in an equation. Or, economics is not a science. Both hold a grain of truth, but are not extended upon beyond platitudes.)

Some critics, however, are economists. Thomas Piketty and Ha-Joon Chang are good examples of the latter, though the venerable Steve Keen is my personal favourite among the rebels. If you have had read these economists, you may detect some of their criticisms among my own; though I quite fancy that I am original. Anyway, vanity is a vice, so allow me to get to the meat of the arguments...

Problem No. 1: economic models are not dynamic. To clarify, by “dynamic” I mean that the models do not explicitly refer to time—either graphically, mathematically, or even in argument. Some economists (especially those who have never done a proper science, like physics or chemistry) seem to think that economic models are dynamic because... time is in there somewhere.

Of course time is present in these models, in some way—they wouldn’t make any sense otherwise. (They make little enough sense as it is!) The problem is that this relationship is dreadfully ambiguous; there is absolutely no clarity about what happens when, and this leads to a number of conceptual errors and oversights.

The above graph is a clumsily drawn example, representing an IS–LM model of a small open economy, with e (nominal exchange rate) on the vertical axis and Y (national income) on the horizontal axis. The two sloping lines are IS-curves, while the vertical line is an LM curve. The shift of the IS curve outwards represents a ceteris paribus fall in taxes.

The moral of this story is that, in a small open economy with perfect capital mobility, fiscal policy doesn’t work: you can’t change national income with fiscal policy measures. Even if we assume this is true (there are economists who do not agree with this assessment), the problem is that the graph is extremely obtuse.

There is a whole time dynamic involved here. First, a fall in taxes leads to an increase in Y, which in turn leads to an increase in r (interest rate) as the money supply is fixed. The increase in r leads to a situation where r>r* (the domestic interest rate is higher than the international); this leads to an influx of capital, which in turn drives up the exchange rate e. The appreciation of e leads to a fall in NX, which brings Y back down to the initial Y.

None of that is shown on the graph. We only see a new equilibrium point at e2 and Y. Great explanation there!

Problem No2: economic models confuse cause and effect. If you look at the IS–LM graph aforementioned, you might be forgiven for thinking that somehow Y (national income) affects e (the nominal exchange rate). In the sciences, we put the independent variable on the x-axis, and the dependent variable on the y-axis.

To peruse one of many examples from physics:

The story here is pretty straightforward: you apply a force, and the material stretches in a particular way dependent on its material properties.

Occasionally in physics, some graphs don’t follow this convention, usually for reasons of convenience.

The problem is that nearly all economics models have it backwards: they put the independent variable (the causation, the mover) on the Y-axis, and the independent variable (the observed change) on the X-axis. This small change makes economic graphs unnecessarily confusing. In the IS–LM model, e affects Y because e affects NX and Y is dependent on NX; however, there is no clear relationship going the other way round.

In formal logic notation,

(x → y) ≠ (x ↔ y)

This says that (x implies y) is not the same as (x and y imply each other). Or to put it in more comprehensible terms: if I sleep through my alarm I will be late; but if I am late, that doesn’t necessarily mean I slept through my alarm (I could have been stuck in traffic!)

Problem No3: economic models make overly idealised assumptions. This is a big one. Economists say that the art of economic modelling is choosing good assumptions; but if so, economists must be terrible at their job.

Let’s look at the previous model I showed: the IS–LM model under conditions of a small open economy with perfect capital mobility. You may now observe that, actually, well—capital isn’t perfectly mobile. You can’t do a runner with a house. What’s more, houses take time to sell (again, dynamic systems!) and the resale value is not always high (risk element). In many parts of the world, there are restrictions on foreigners buying houses.

Because the assumption of perfect capital mobility is wrong, the aforementioned conclusion is wrong as well. Fiscal policy does have an effect on national income—just look at the UK under austerity. It is thought by many economists that Osborne’s economic policy cost the UK a lot of lost income growth. The Sterling did not depreciate and net exports remained pretty dismal (the former stayed high and the latter stayed negative).

A more useful assumption would have been: assume that some capital assets are mobile while others are not. Determine the share of mobile-assets for the economy you are looking at. This way, you get a much better grasp for what’s actually going on.

Problem No4: vagueness. This is a problem that I have rarely seen mentioned, perhaps because it is of a slightly more philosophical nature. Essentially, what I have noticed in economic models is that they can be quite unclear as to what a concept or variable is referring to.

Take the example of r*, which represents the going interest rate across the globe. Or even just r, which represents the going interest rate in a national economy. My question is: which interest rate does it represent, exactly? Investments have many rates of return. We all know that some investors make a fortune on the stock market; others make a loss. Bonds have different returns based on their maturity period.

If we just take a weighted mean of all these different interest rates, we risk missing some important constituent details.

If we look at the globe, we... observe that there are many interest rates, across both private sector and government investments. Even if we confine ourselves to only government bonds, we see that there are large discrepancies based on the countries’ riskiness (Argentina or South Africa have higher interest rates on their bonds than Germany or the US).

At this point, economists just thought: “Aha! We can model interests rates as being r* + P, where P is the risk premium.”

Except it’s not that simple; the concept of risk premium is itself vague. How do you quantify a risk premium? No one knows. Investors make investment decisions based on their perception of that risk, but the risk itself is uncertain; the interest rate we observe is just the expression of a social belief, not some neat numerical correction.

To put it in philosophical language, the ontological status of the risk premium (and numerous other macroeconomic concepts) is misunderstood. And the consequences are not just philosophical; they can lead to a number of conceptual errors with serious policymaking implications. One prominent example is in neoliberal economics, and its belief in the divine importance of the market price.

In a debate about rent prices in London, the neoliberal economists might say: “All these social housing schemes are nonsense. Why should the state interfere and distort the housing market price?” The use of the word distort is very important—it suggests that the market price is almost like a physical quantity, a reality that should not be meddled with. In reality, of course, the housing prices of London are really just a reflection of the (deluded) expectations of property owners on future prices, among other things.

Problem No5: the role of risk, uncertainty, and expectations. This is another area of economics that is under active research, and in which we are starting to see improvements. I’ve decided not to go detail here; the topic is quite technical, and anyway, I’m doing research on it right now. Perhaps I will cover it in a future post. Until then, I will (again) recommend reading the venerable Steve Keen, along with various other economists such as Frank Knight and Gunnar Myrdal.

Concluding Remarks

What I have written ultimately only scratches the surface; there are much more fundamental questions to be asked about macroeconomics and its ability to accurately model and predict real world economies. Nevertheless, I think the five key problems I have highlighted constitute a good set of methodological problems with macroeconomics—and they are problems that can be feasibly solved.

My conclusion for students, policymakers, and other economists is this: presently, economic models are pretty rubbish. They are in urgent need of improvement—or else economists will find themselves stuck in the credibility crisis they are now in. But better models will demand the work of newer, wiser, and better educated thinkers.

In other words, we need a twin revolution; a revolution in the way we teach economics, to attract stronger students from a wider variety of fields, and a revolution in the way we do economics. Will the field rise up to this challenge? Perhaps. People like Steve Keen give me hope. On the other hand: there are a lot of economists who prefer to keep their head in the sand. What can I say? I hope they die quickly.

Why Economic Models are Bullshit (Part I)

Hello dear readers!

Previously, I wrote on a number of topics, chiefly among them: my exams, and Fallen Love, my upcoming novel. Alas the former has prevented me from working on the latter; Fallen Love will probably not be finished until January, as I stated. Still, with my exams finally over, I can get back to working on it.

You may be wondering as to the title of this post. Your guess would be correct—this post is indeed a brief argumentative essay (read: rant) about economic models, on which I have spent the last week of my life revising for. I am taking both micro and macroeconomics, but this post will mainly be about macro; I will get onto why in a moment.

A Pedagogical Disaster

The simplest reason for my particular hatred of macroeconomic models has to do with teaching. That’s the simple reason, but the more complicated reason has to do with content (though the two are, of course, tied together).

To put it simply: the teaching has been disastrous. More than half of our class failed the first exam—this is in a selective university, mind you, with many of the student body having attained excellent grades in secondary school. One reason was the teacher. We had two teachers, and the first was quite dire.

“That’s one bad apple,” you say. “There are bad teachers in the world. That doesn’t mean macroeconomics is bullshit.”

This fact alone does not prove my point—except that this is not a single, isolated phenomena. Economics students across the world routinely struggle with their courses, complaining that they do not really understand it; that indeed, “it”—macroeconomic models—don’t make any sense. One bad teacher is one thing. But can the entire pedagogical structure of economic teaching be at fault?

I would argue yes. The most common complaint I’ve heard in my university is that (and I am paraphrasing only slightly) “I draw the graphs, but I don’t know what it means or why.” There are a few reasons for this. To begin with: concepts. Macroeconomic concepts are strongly under-explained. The course introduces things like “inflation”, “GDP”, “unemployment” and (my personal favourite) “money”—but these macroeconomic concepts differ significantly from the prima facie conception that students begin the course with.

A case in point: a number of students conflated the AS–AD model with the supply-and-demand model from micro economics. They even sound similar—one is “aggregate” supply and demand, the other just vanilla supply and demand.

Although they look extremely similar, they aren’t the same. The microeconomic model has P (prices) on the vertical axis and Q (quantity) on the horizontal axis—this arrangement is problematic, but I’ll get to that. Anyway, the AS–AD model has P (price levels) and Y (real GDP, output) on the respective axes. These are different concepts. Price levels are a measure of weighted, generalised prices across a macroeconomy (usually they are calculated in the form of the CPI)—they’re not the same thing as the price in a market. Y, representing real GDP, is sometimes called output, leading students to conflate it with quantity output.

Money is the worst, however. Students have no idea what money actually is (in fact a lot of economists don’t understand what money is, but students are even worse). In a macroeconomic context, money doesn’t just mean the euros in your pocket; it represents a wide range of things, from liquid assets held in bank accounts (M1) to savings accounts (M2) to more nebulous concepts of money that are too technical to go into here.

This is also why students struggle with the IS–LM model, which rests on a complicated set of assumptions about money and what money does in an economy.

Anyway, onto the next pedagogical error: mechanistic teaching and oversimplification. Our teachers presented all of these models as a series of mechanical steps, expressed in equally mechanical equations. “What happens if taxes increase under the classical model?” (Some curves shift.) “What happens if labour supply increases under the AD-AS model in the short-run and long-run?” (A complicated mess.) “What happens in the Mundell-Flemming model if, under a fixed exchange rate condition...” (I give up.)

There was very little explanation of why all these things happened. Why would a government want to increase taxes anyway? Why does the model look at these variables? What explanatory power do these models have, and what assumptions do they make?

These are all key questions that remained unanswered. This leads me onto the third pedagogic mistake: not teaching history. These models did not fall out of the sky. They were developed by economists—in a particular time and place, in a particular intellectual climate, and in a particular historical context. It’s difficult to understand these models, much less criticise them or apply them, without this precious context.

Yet, even without all these mistakes of pedagogy, there are more fundamental reasons why macroeconomic models are difficult for the students to comprehend. To repeat the title of this post: macroeconomic models are bullshit.

Conclusion Part I

I realise that you are probably tired of reading this, dear reader, so I will save my juicy critique of macroeconomics for the next post (titled “Why Macroeconomics is Bullshit, Part II”). For the time being, I will let you ponder the parlous state of economics teaching in our schools and universities.

Until then, make sure to check out Fallen Love in case you haven’t already.

The Long Autumn

Hail readers!

Today I shall be giving you a brief update, regarding both my progress on Fallen Love, and the state of my life at present (the two being, of course, inextricably linked).

To wit: progress on Fallen Love has been slower than I was perhaps hoping for. Nonetheless, I have made some progress. I read, edited, and rewrote over 100 pages in the book since last week. The changes were, primarily, related to tense, description, and the mechanics of writing; but I also rewrote a chapter in order to change the course of events slightly. I have not made substantial changes to plot and characterisation—the reason is simply because I haven’t got to that part yet. The beginning of the book serves more as a foundation; it is the later chapters that really advance the plot and, by extension, the character development.

Why has progress been slow, you wonder? Partly it’s because I have not received all of the feedback from my beta readers, and what feedback I did receive was mostly not that useful. I will ask you, reader, to consider helping me. If you think you can beta-read, drop me an email (work DOT alexstargazer AT gmail.com) and we’ll see. I very much appreciate help and feedback at this point.

It’s also been partly because I’ve had a lot of work to do. Last week was lecture-free, but I nevertheless had an essay to finish, a quiz to submit, and a statistics project to work on. This week I will also be busy. Tomorrow I have another quiz; after that I should do some work on two essays; and I also need to enrol for next semester’s courses (a complicated business).

The week after this, I need to focus and revise for my second round of exams. I will also have to squeeze in an annotated report and presentation.

I hope you understand why I am moving my goals for Fallen Love further in the future. Previously, I hoped to have wrapped up the revision process by November; that was naive, a hope guided by the fact that it will soon have been a year since I started writing Fallen Love (and a year since I gave up on the Ark). I am planning, instead, on having finished the revisions by January. Then I will start submitting to agents.

I am also going to Romania this Christmas—the first Christmas I am spending in my home country for a very, very long time. In the past 15 years I have been to Romania only in the summer, except once in February. What can I say? Christmas will be very busy this year.

My blogging efforts will remain sporadic over this period, as university, the book, and life will take up most of my attention. Although, I am taking breaks in the form of reading, and so I will continue posting my reviews. You can read my (very substantial!) backlog here.

Until next time!

A New Year (Of Work)

Good day readers, and hallo from Amsterdam!

This summer, I have been away both in Romania, where I visited Vatra Dornei, and Scotland (where I saw many places): if you are interested, you can check out my photos here and here.

Now, I am back in Amsterdam to begin my second year of university. It has, as I have said before, been a long year; yet I have done much, not least quitting the Ark, and beginning Fallen Love. Speaking of which: that is the topic of today’s little update.

I am now on 71,000 words—a significant feat on top of all my visiting, and of course all my university work. I daresay I am quite pleased, especially since I am close to finishing! A couple of thousand words is all that separates me from completion.

And what will I do once I finish it, you ask? Well, at first, not much. I intend to let it sit for a few weeks. Then I will go back; I will read through the novel in its entirety, resolving unfinished business, perhaps adding or subtracting some scenes, and generally getting a feel for my new creation.

In the meanwhile, I will be doing a few other things. Of course there is my university work; that will take up a significant amount of my time, but not all of it by any means. No: I will also be spending some time on Tapas, a fantasy- and comic-book themed platform that can help me gain new readers. I’m not entirely sure what I will put up (it may be new content; it may be some existing unpublished material) but I hope it will be interesting.

Now, onto writing and the new academic year. Wish me luck!

A Long Year

Hello readers!

It has alas been some time since I have last written to you. But rest assured that a great deal has been going on; in fact, the purpose of this post is to recount on this year’s events. There are many, and I will split it into three broad sections: academics, writing, and a few tidbits about my personal life. In my usual style, these reflections will be paired with a few wayward analyses.

Until then, a quick update regarding my present situation: I am now in Romania, after a long day in airports. I will be visiting Vatra Dornei, a mountain town; there I will take photos (which of course I shall release) along with inspiration. Or, well, that’s the plan.

Anyway...

The Wonders of Academia

Having completed my first year at Amsterdam University College, I have a number of observations to make regarding both the university and academic life in general.

To begin with, the former. The AUC, as it’s handily abbreviated, is uncommon in its teaching model: it has a student body of only 900, and they are rather diverse, ranging from all four corners of Europe—be it Sweden or Italy, Albania or Portugal—and beyond, from the Americas, New Zealand and Russia. Indeed, the AUC’s motto is “excellence and diversity in a global city” (which the students lightly mock by calling themselves “the excellent and diverse people of AUC”).

Despite this, the student body is also remarkably uniform. Partly this is as a direct consequence of its size: with only 900 kids, it’s much harder to capture the smorgasbord of life experiences that a university of 30,000 can. Partly it’s as a result of socio-economics, with few Muslims or people from African descent to be seen (at least relative to other places). And partly it’s as a result of its politics—the AUC is Liberal with a capital L.

Anyway, the more personal question I should be asking is “Have I enjoyed my time here?” And for the most part, I have. I have made very good progress, obtaining a number of As and A–. The workload has been... managable, really. I have after all managed to do a hell of a lot of writing (of which you will learn soon).

It hasn’t been entirely rosy, of course. One reason, as I irrelevantly put it, is the wonder of academia. The prevailing academic culture is dry, formalistic, and devoid of common sense. I should precede that statement with the qualifier “mostly”—there are wonderful exceptions, full of clarity and wit—but they are exceptions.

A good example of this are citations. We learned three types of citations in our academic writing class—APA, CSE and MLA—and all three are a pain in the arse. There’s also Harvard, Chicago, and numerous others; each is more tedious than the last.

To explain, these citation styles all require that the author follow very strict, unhelpful, and inflexible formats for how they cite sources. APA asks for (variable-1 variable-2) where variable-1 is author name—last name, mind you—and variable-2 is the year of publication. MLA asks for (author-name page-number) in the same format. If you need to cite a source written by unknown authors (which are actually fairly common) you have to resort to other complicated rules. If your source is an ebook, MLA is a pain; if your source is historical, APA also looks weird.

An example:

APA: Stupid sociologist A believes that weird concept x is useful in explaining whatever; but stupid sociologist B argues that weird concept y should be used to explain it. (Woodward 1990; Back 1990). However, yet another stupid sociologist C thinks both concepts are needed. (unspellable name 2000).

APA cont.: Marx (1857) in his Das Kapital argued that...

Mises (no page number because it’s a fucking ebook) argued that...

And this is before we even get to the bibliography/works cited/references/whatever synonym your style demands. The rules there are so complicated that it’s impossible for a normal, sane human being to try and remember them; we’re left to using software to do it for us.

Does a solution exist for this? Is it possible to cite academic sources in a pain-free manner? Of course; it’s only a question of imagination, and maybe some good quality software design. In-text citations could be done with a number, like [1], perhaps followed with an optional field for additional clarity. The optional field could be an author name, the name of the work being cited, or really anything that is appropriate in context. So the above could read:

Sociologist A [1][Woodward] believes that... Sociologist B argues [2][Back]

Marx [1][Das Kapital]

Mises [1]...

Bibliographies could be structured logically rather than arbitrarily, so instead of:

Ayer, A. (1936). Propositions about the past and other minds. Language, truth and logic (1952nd ed., pp. 19). New York: Dover Publications.

Berkeley, B. (1710). Treatise concerning human knowledge (Dover Edition ed.). New York: Dover Publications.

Brink, D. (2014). Aristotelian naturalism in the history of ethics. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 52(1), 814.

You could have:

1. Title: Propositions about the Past and Other Minds.
Author: AJ Ayer (Alfred Jules Ayer)
Publication year: 1952
Publisher: Dover
etc...
2. Title: Treatise Concerning Human Knowledge...

This would make it far easier to both produce and read citations. But still, academia continues with this arcane, time-consuming and moronic practice.

I haven’t yet touched on the other absurdities that prevail in academic circles; indeed doing so would require more breadth than I have in a blog post. I’ll just leave you with this little bundle of joy.

This Article, a third in a series of related works, explores the representation of sexual identity within Critical Race Theory and other forms of anti-racist discourse. I argue, after examining representative texts, that anti-racist discourse is often "heteronormative" -- or centered around heterosexual experiences. Most commonly, anti-racist heteronormativity occurs when scholars and activists in the field fail to analyze the homophobic dimensions of acts or conditions of racial inequality and when they dismiss, either implicitly or explicitly, the "morality" of gay and lesbian equality claims. This Article recommends that scholars in Critical Race Theory and related fields adopt a more multidimensional lens for studying oppression and identity -- one that treats forms of subordination and identity as interrelated, rather than as mutually exclusive and unconnected.

—By some stupid academic. Sorry, no fancy citations here.

The Joys of Writing

Moving on, in another perhaps sarcastically titled section, I come to my writing.

Back in November, I made a huge decision: I abandoned my novel in progress, the Ark, and began writing Fallen Love instead. It was not a decision I made lightly—I had after all been working on the Ark for more than a year. But I feel that in the end it was the right one. Put simply, the Ark was not the book I was meant to be writing; the premise was incoherent, the conflict was lacking, and it just didn’t turn out the way I wanted it.

Fallen Love is also a challenging project, but it is one I am enjoying. I still have much work to do, but I am getting there. Partly, this has been result of perfectionism on my part: I am not easily satisfied. But a more detailed explanation will require another blog post.

In other areas, I have been with Red Pers—an online newspaper run by an AUC student—for more than six months now. I have written a large number of articles, many of which I have linked here. To make it easy for you, they can all be found here: http://www.redpers.nl/author/alex/

I am hoping to expand into paid journalism soon, details of which I will be releasing once I have something concrete.

Finally, I have also been busy writing essays. My first, entitled Fantasy versus Science Fiction: A Curious Divergence, will be published by Issues in Earth Science—for which they are giving me a modest prize. I have also written another essay, on university education, which I hope will get picked up.

The Vicissitudes of Life

Living in Amsterdam has thrown some challenges at me. Some of it has been largely predictable; it was Benjamin Franklin who remarked, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I have indeed paid taxes, as well as asked for benefits, and generally wrangled with the bureaucracy.

Another truism that has been proven is “there’s no such thing as free lunch”—because it costs money, and time to cook, both of which have been important aspects I have had to contend with. The financial side has been manageable, due to a combination of my parents, my grandparents, and the state. As for the cooking side, I have devised a number of dishes that meet my requirements: relatively low cooking time, health, animal welfare and impact on the environment. The exact details I may share later, but it has involved lots of wholegrain pasta, rice, lentils, and copious amounts of soy products.

Finally, there has been love, which I feel demands another catchy cliché. Perhaps: “When you’re in love, it’s like the universe revolves around you and the person you love. Actually nobody really gives a shit.” I am exaggerating, of course, but you get the point.

Conclusion

It has been a long year, as the title alludes. I have written countless essays, and taken countless exams; I wrote till my fingers bled; and I lived, experiencing the three permanent features of life: lunch, taxes, and unrequited love. Now, it is time for me to wrap up. I will write again, so keep following!

A Brief Update

Hello readers!

I do apologise for my dreadful lack of blogging these last two weeks. I have, alas, been busy—both with university, and with other areas of writing. To begin: you may find my analysis on the aftermath of the General Election interesting.

The question that is on everyone’s mind — be it political commentators, several reputable pollsters, and of course, May herself — is surely: how did it come to this? Barely two months ago, it seemed inevitable that she would win, and win big. By embracing Brexit, and indeed presenting herself as the Queen of Brexit, May believed she would win millions of votes from people who voted UKIP (an anti-immigration party) two years ago. On top of that, Labour was in chaos: Corbyn (Labour’s controversial leader) had faced a motion of no-confidence, a walkout by his Shadow Cabinet, and was the most unpopular leader in opposition history.

And yet, here we are, in an election where Labour gained seats (and a rare 40 percent of the vote share) while May has lost her majority. What gives? What led May from being the uncrowned queen to the empress with no clothes?

Full article on Red Pers.

I have, on top of this, finalised my essay to be published in Issues in Earth Science—I will be receiving the prize money soon. On top of that, there has, of course, been the matter of Fallen Love. My upcoming new book is filled with delights, but writing it has proven to be a substantial amount of work. As I have written previously there are various reasons for this, not least the fact that I am writing in a new genre.

I have also been doing more miscellaneous things, such as visiting Amsterdam in the summer—photos can be seen here—and attempting to make the best of the unexpectedly pleasant summer weather.

In any case, you’ll forgive me when I say this post is short. I must soldier on, with an exam on Thursday and a book that refuses to write itself. Until then, may the stars be with you.

A Summer of Words

Good day, readers!

Today, Alex has finally taken the time to write a proper update—although Alex hopes you did enjoy the second guest post by Molly. Quite a number of things have happened since Alex last wrote; therefore, this post will be a longer one. We will have four topics as the subject matter: to begin with, Alex’s university life, followed by all elements of his writing—poems, essays, and of course, Fallen Love.

Without further ado...

A University Experience

The academic year is scheduled as follows: there are two 16-week periods, and two 6-week periods, with breaks in between, and a nearly two month long summer holiday. Alex has completed the first 16- and 6-week period; the second sixteen week period, which he is in now, is almost at an end. Thus, there are six more weeks until the summer holiday.

The next 6 weeks will have Alex study for a course known as “Global Identity”, which—according to former students—is quite a bore. Therefore, Alex has hopes to make significant headway in his writing.

University life has brought many challenges for me (yes, we’re not in third person anymore). Friendship, romance, loneliness—to name a few emotions. On top of that, there have been practical difficulties. Accommodation, bank accounts and bureaucracy were just some of them.

Academically, I have found university to my liking. I have obtained excellent grades so far. Although, of course, it has meant significant work: ten exams, ten substantial essays, and countless smaller assignments. What can I say? I need a proper break.

Two Lovestruck Poems

I have alluded to romantic feelings, and indeed, there has been a special someone whom I have fallen for. They will be known only as “The One Who Shall Not Be Named”.

The poems are called Eromenos (transliterated from the Greek, meaning “beloved”) and the Dove. You may read them below.

Eromenos

The Dove

Essays, and Money

I have won my first paid essay competition! The science publisher, Issues in Earth and Space Science, has accepted my essay for a €50 prize. The title of the work is “Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Curious Divergence”. I won’t release it just yet—but it will be published in short order.

I have not yet decided on what I want to use the money for, although I hope to make a modest donation to charity.

In addition, I have also submitted to another academic publisher—the ERIS Journal for Humanities, run by the VU university—which will release the results this summer. First prize is €350, so wish me luck!

Fallen Love: A Difficult Tale

In addition to all these efforts, there has, of course, been what is perhaps the most important: Fallen Love, my upcoming novel.

Its tale is a long and fraught one. Initially—nearly two years ago, in fact—I began writing the Ark, which was the story I first planned to tell. Alas, that did not work out as expected; I wrote on my experience here. Instead, following a moment of dark inspiration, I chose to write the tale I am now creating.

Efforts so far have not gotten me nearly as far as I would have wished. I wrote 48,000 words; after a fair amount of revision, I am now on 46,000. I expect Part One will come in at under 45,000. After that, I will began writing Part Two—for a grand total somewhere between 80K and 90K words.

Since I have been rather taciturn with regards to the story (I have only posted a blurb on the “Upcoming Books” page) perhaps it is time I let slip a few more details.

Fallen Love is a story set in Dublin, in the year 2620. It is a strange place: Ireland is run by an authoritarian regime known, simply, as the Party. Europe is united in the form of the European Superstate, against the Chinese menace. Dark things walk the Earth—mutants that prey on humans, driven by a passion known only to them.

Mark, a young man belonging to the Fallen—a Class of people with few rights—doesn’t understand why his father abandoned him, nor why he’s fallen for Conall, an arrogant Upperclassman with a love of beautiful things.

Neither of them suspect what lies in store for them. There are barriers that guard their world from the forces of the Dark One; but they grow thinner, and the menace looms larger. Mark will soon discover that his father had every reason to leave...

Finishing Thoughts

I am a busy man, as you can see. My work takes on many forms—be it academic essays, romantic poems, or evocative novels. My only command is that you stay and listen. There is more yet to come... though not this week. There is one more exam yet to go!

Mr Stargazer, the Writer Plagued

Hello readers!

It is now approaching the half-way point of October. At the start of this month, I spoke of two things: firstly there were my plans to republish the Necromancer; and secondly, there was the news that the Magical Realm would only see old posts being bumped up. Both things have so far held true.

I have bumped up two posts that I thought merited your attention: my review of the Lady Midnight, and my popular post entitled On Editing. I hope that you found them to your interest, if you did not read them; if you already read them, apologies, but I have been extremely busy.

You see, I have done a substantial amount of work on the new edition of the Necromancer. There is a new ending! And—a rewritten prologue. Various other changes have been made; and more remain to be made. I hope to make some changes to certain elements of the story; to remove certain chapters that shouldn’t have been included, and to rework others that are in need of rethinking. I hope to have completed the work by the end of this month—and to republish the Necromancer by Halloween.

That said, however, this is no easy task. One reason for this is my move—due to various causes I am moving to a single room. This has uprooted me greatly; and I have spent much time and effort carrying furniture, clothing, and other victuals of civilised life.

I also needed to buy many things. A fridge, for of course the housing association had not bothered to include such a necessity. Nor did they bother to include chairs, or tables. I even have to buy a light fitting for the bathroom. It will suffice to say that my opinion of the housing association is poor—I will avoid the temptation to break into profanity.

On top of that, there has been university work, and working with the Scriptus editors to finalise my pieces before the deadline.

I have also submitted two collections of my poetry to two journals; I hope to hear from them soon.

So, as you can see, I am all too busy. You will forgive me—I think—for saying that I will be bumping up more old posts over the course of this month. After all, I still have a wardrobe and a bed to make, plus more pieces of furniture to procure.

But look at the bright side—you will get to discover many interesting posts buried deep in the archives, and at the end of this month, you will have the opportunity to read a new version of the Necromancer.

Until then, may the stars be with you. (And dare I say—may they be with me!)

On Free Speech

Hello readers!

You may be wondering what Alex has been doing these past couple of days. He has already spoken on his experience thus far at university; but what, you wonder, of his writing? Has the Ark been assiduously extended and revised?

The answer to this question is of course: I have been busy writing the first chapter of part three, and have made changes regarding the tense for the prologue. If you wish to discover more, however, I will repeat what I have said previously. Signup to the mailing list and you will be able to actually read some of what I am writing, as well as get access to exclusive content.

Anyway, the topic of this post is of course not the Ark. Rather, it is about an age old issue recently inflamed into passion: free speech.

The articles that spurred me to write this are, in particular, the piece over at the LRB by David Bromwich, along with this piece in the Guardian. (And yes, I read the Guardian and the LRB almost exclusively. Quality media is a rare thing these days.)

I will begin by addressing the key arguments these authors propose, and complete this (hopefully succinct) essay by elaborating on my own position. So, without further ado, let us turn our attention to the business at hand.

Social Media and the Prophet Muhammad

I believe there are two key points that Bromwich makes in his piece on the LRB: the first is that social media is an ‘echo chamber’ (to use that popular political terminology). On social media, unlike real life, you interact only with people you agree with. Your ideas are met only with acquiescence; and so, gradually, you begin to go a little mad. Your ideas grow more and more extreme, ever further out of touch with ordinary people.

Or at least that’s the narrative Bromwich buys into. However, I am far from convinced, and question Bromwich’s experience with social media. From what I can see, there are two issues with this narrative. Firstly—in real life, as much as anywhere, one can live in a bubble.

People tend to prefer interactions with others like them. Be it in terms of class, education, or even political leanings, bubbles exist throughout the real world. Accusations of politicians ‘being out of touch’ would lack their rhetorical power were it not for this.

Secondly, while I agree that social media can act as an echo chamber, the opposite also holds true. The Internet allows us to interact with people who are very different from us—indeed, its capability to do so is unprecedented: nowhere else can one hold a conversation with someone from the other side of the world.

The second point Bromwich makes is exemplified by this paragraph:

Here is a thought experiment. What would be the Western reaction to a cartoonist who leaned heavily on the most flagrant anti-Catholic or anti-Jewish clichés – Jesuits in cowl and robe conspiring to set a Catholic king on the English throne, or Jews drinking the blood of a Christian child? The anti-Catholic swipe would be looked on as a bizarre eccentricity, of no controversial interest at all; the anti-Jewish one might prompt alarm as a symptom of cultural regression; but in either case, ascription of moral courage and artistic merit would be out of the question. This may suggest why the defence of Charlie Hebdo as an equal-opportunity offender was misjudged. The cartoons were published at a time when a few Muslims were known to be terrorists and many others were outsiders in European society, exposed to prejudice of a kind no longer suffered by Christians or Jews. Complacency was a recurrent flaw in the European and North American praise of the cartoons. There is, after all, a difference between ridicule of the established and mockery of the unestablished. Though the difference can never rightly be reflected in laws, since laws must apply to everyone in the same way, Charlie Hebdo might have served to bring the matter to consciousness. [sic]

I am, once more, skeptical. Comparing anti-Catholic, or even anti-Jewish satire with the kind of satire that Charlie Hebdo published is, frankly, a stretch. Catholics have not conspired to treason in Western countries for centuries. And anti-Semitic tropes—such as of the aforementioned drinking of babies’ blood, or of the international cabal, the usurious banker—all share one crucial property. They’re false.

But tropes about Muslims are not false. That’s where the line between Islamophobia and genuine liberal criticism needs to be drawn. Jews don’t run the world; but Muslims do issues fatwas (death threats based on heresy) to Danish cartoonists. Muslims do try to butcher said cartoonist with a hatchet, and they do kill certain cartoonists with AK-47s and RPGs. (Cough cough.)

This I believe is the crucial, and unfortunate misunderstanding about Charlie Hebdo. One may argue that sometimes they go too far. One may argue that they can be crude, or stereotype lazily. But at the end of the day, they have a point: Islam can’t tolerate criticism, no matter how justified.

Anyway, although I disagree with the author on these two counts, I do fundamentally agree with the broad stroke of his argument: that free speech is a political good to be valued. I will clarify this further by considering the arguments of Garton Ash in the Guardian.

Safe Spaces, or Free Speech?

Ostensibly it seems absurd that the fear of being offended—of trying to hide under the language of intellectual cowardice—should trump the political right to speak one’s mind. And this is indeed the thrust of Garton Ash’s argument.

But I feel the issue is not quite so clear cut. As Garton Ash puts it, how can someone giving a speech on the other side of campus possibly affect you? And yet that’s naive. Consider the example of transgender people. If someone of an anti-trans persuasion were to deliver a hateful speech against transgender people, there would be those who would be inspired by it. These bigots would in turn bully—and this is a light word for a serious issue—trans people, and we would see trans people killing themselves in even greater numbers than they already do. (Suicide is not a joke. This article is one of many showing disturbing statistics.)

The same could apply for any other persecuted minority you care to name. Should a radical Imam, for example, be allowed to foment hatred against gay people? Should he be allowed to suggest that women deserve rape? Should they, indeed, be allowed to promote terrorism?

Of course I am not talking about all Muslims here, let that be known. But the liberal left—who, ironically enough, are the ones calling for safe spaces—are in denial about terrorism. There exists a dangerous minority of radical Muslims in this country and around the world; and throwing petrol to their fire is nothing to joke about. Nor, indeed, is pretending that extremely disturbing attitudes (such as on homosexuality, the rights of women, and Shariah) aren’t prevalent in Muslim communities.

Anyway, I’m digressing.The point here is that the line between speech and action is sometimes very fine. It is why I support incitement-type laws (incitement to racial hated, incitement to violence, that sort of thing), and more broadly the principle that an institution—such as a university—has a responsibility towards its students to indeed keep them safe from violence or verbal abuse.

But: this is not to say that a university has a responsibility to protect its students from ideas that are merely controversial, offensive, or intellectually discomforting. The line is a fine one, and I believe it fair to say a difficult one, but it is a line nevertheless.

That is the prime topic of this little essay. However, there are one or two other things related to the issue that I wish to address.

The Crime of the Micro

The language employed by the liberal left, and more specifically (since the liberal left is itself a broad church) that of the Social Justice Warriors, is increasingly worrying. I am of course talking about such terms as the ‘microtrauma,’ the ‘microaggression,’ and the ‘trigger warnings’.

For those of you unacquainted, the basic definitions of the the terms is as following. A microtrauma is basically a social insult committed by a member of the Privileged Class (in the SJW hierarchy) to a member of the Oppressed Class. An example would be a white person not looking at a black person in a way that might be considered rude.

A microaggression is, similarly, an instance where a white person looks too closely at a black person, in such a way that it may be construed as offensive. And a trigger warning concerns sensitive subjects such as sexual assault, which may unduly distress the students.

If all of this is making you scratch your head, welcome to the club. To understand the kind of censorship the SJWs are proposing, and why it increasingly concerns academics, you need to understand this context. If an SJW sees oppression in the most trivial and harmless of social encounters, what do you think their reaction is to, say, a feminist icon arguing against trans women—let alone a hate preacher?

So yes: I will re-iterate my original point. We don’t need to give a platform to those who pose a real danger to the safety of our student body. But nor must we dream oppression where there is none; a balance must be struck.

But the Better Argument Will Win!

Finally, I will address the arguments that some of the more radical defenders of free speech provide.

The classic argument is, of course, the following. Provided that free speech is permitted, it is ineluctably the case that the weak arguments shall be dissected, discredited, and displaced by the more convincing arguments.

The theory is wonderful; the reality is not so rosy. The best historical example of this is of course the Holocaust. Hitler’s political narrative did, as historical fact shows, win out. He won two referendums—to extend his power and have Germany leave the League of Nations—with large majorities. His Nationalsozialistische partei was the largest in the Reichstag, having won the 1933 Federal election with 44% of the vote.

To defend themselves against this charge, proponents of the argument above engage in some creative intellectual gymnastics. The reason Hitler won, they say, is because there was no free speech!

Aside from being somewhat tautological, the key issue with this argument is its lack of historical veracity. It is true that Hitler engaged in censorship, but this was not true of the early years when Hitler was not in power. Remember: Hitler didn’t gain power through the means of a military coup. His power was democratic before it became autocratic.

I will therefore ask that one should not assume that good arguments will automatically displace poor arguments, as if by some natural process of osmosis. In the real world, people can be misinformed, stupid, ignorant and indoctrinated.

However...

At the same time, there is a valuable political good in free speech. On a first point of order, intellectual strength: any intellectual institution that censors the controversial is bound to end up decaying, its foundations undermined by dogma and unreason.

The second point of order is political—history may teach us that free speech is not an antidote to madness, but its lack often leads to political repression, and tends to be the purlieu of the autocratic regime.

At times, I would argue, it may make sense to limit some forms of free speech. Hate speech, as I have already mentioned; and indeed, in Germany as in many European countries, Holocaust denial continues to be illegal. Balance, as I say.

A Few More Distinctions

Often in debates about free speech, some important distinctions fail to be made.

Firstly, the oppression of free speech has a specific definition: it is committed by the state. An institution, like a university, ‘No-Platforming’ a speaker may sometimes be an act of intellectual cowardice, but it is not the repression of free speech. It is, as the name implies, about not giving someone a platform.

Even when the repression of speech does occur at the state level—such as when the German government bans Holocaust denial—it is not, by necessity, oppressive. Of course not! Unlike what the more radical defenders of absolute freedom of speech like to claim, jailing Neo-Nazis does not an authoritarian state make.

It is possible—emphasis on the word possible—that allowing Neo-Nazis and other such unsavoury figures to speak their mind can, indeed, lead to them being discredited: the leader of the BNP, Nick Griffiths, was so undermined when he was interviewed by the BBC.

But not always. As I say, there are no absolutes in free speech.

Conclusion

My essay has been somewhat long, I’m sorry to say, but I hope it has made clear my thoughts on free speech—and, hopefully, inspired you to think through your attitude to free speech.

Any disagreement (and I would be surprised if some of you did not disagree) and I will be happy to respond on the comments section. Remember: be civil. Alex is the autocrat of the Magical Realm, and thus has the power to censor all that he wishes ;)

Life is Life, Amsterdam

You may have been wondering what my life, here in Amsterdam, has been like these past two weeks. Am I settling in? How is the city? And what of university life?

These questions I shall address herewith. If you are wondering as to how the Ark is going, however, you may wish to signup to the mailing list instead. You will receive regular weekly updates on my progress, along with sneak peeks into the Ark—a privilege you will not be privy if you simply follow the Magical Realm.

Anyway, onto business.

University Life

Uni life is... interesting. Different. And at times hectic—though, I suppose, that isn’t saying much. School has been hectic for many years, now that I look back. Indeed, over the past 6 years or so, I have had nothing but exams. First it was SATs; then the 11+; then GCSEs (in year 9); then more GCSEs; then ASs, and finally A levels. Suffice to say that whenever I hear of a test or assignment, I feel a wearied expectation rather than a pulse of fear.

Nevertheless, university life does have two aspects that are foreign to me. The first is the schedule of the lectures, and the way the workload is distributed more generally. I have lectures starting at four pm and ending at six; I have lectures starting at 9am; and I have everything in between, from 11 to 2. There is no regularity between days.

Is this confusing, you wonder? Certainly. I often find myself working well into the evening; and yet my afternoons are frequently free.

The second aspect is of course the fact that I, not the curriculum, dictate what courses I take. Yes, there are some requirements—I need to do a certain number of courses for my major, I need to take a Big Questions and a Theme course every year (or something), and I have Dutch and French learning periods for two months—but generally speaking, I have a lot of choice.

I can take whichever theme course suits me—be it Energy & Climate, Social Systems, or a multitude others. I can select my big questions course; be it Big Questions in History, Big Books, or whatever other topic picks my fancy. And in my minor, I can choose to do everything from sociology, photography, physics or computer science.

There is something a little bit daunting about it, I will admit. I need to take a certain number of courses to fulfill the university requirements. I need to take certain courses to pursue economics further on in the 3 years and for my masters (if I choose to do that). But, you know what? I can deal with that; choice is no bad thing.

Bureaucracy and Incompetence

Other aspects of my stay here have been less pleasant. The IKEA bed I ordered is missing some holes; I have demanded a refund from IKEA. And as for my (mandatory) registration to City Hall, well; that’s a bit of a story.

Firstly, I didn’t know what documents I needed—because the exact documents were not stated on the municipality website. So, I phone them—dialing the local number unsuccessfully before trying the international one—am put on hold, and finally told that I need to register through the university.

I go to the university... only to be told they can’t register me and I need to book an appointment with the municipality.

I call the municipality again, learn that I only need my ID card and rental contract (with the birth certificate after 3 months), and manage to book an appointment with them—on October the 28th!

So, as you can see, I have been rather busy.

The City

I have visited three parks here: one called Frankendael, another one right next to me, and one other near the Van Gogh museum. I have also visited the city centre—in particular the infamous Regulierwardstraat in the red light district.

The place has a reputation that precedes it. Rather than a hotpot of dubious activity, the place is rather civil and clean; the most notable irregularity is perhaps a sex shop and some gay bars.

Anyway, I have taken these opportunities to take some photos. I will be releasing them soon, so keep an eye out on the Magical Realm.

Cooking

Another aspect of my life that has changed is of course the need for me to cook my own meals. Initially, this proved difficult; I have the wonders of ready made salads and pizzas to thank for my survival. But soon, I found myself cooking—simple dishes such as salads, sausages, pasta, snitel and the like, but food nevertheless.

I have no delusions about my ability as a master gastronomer, but I at least have a modicum of confidence in the kitchen.

Calories are also of great interest to me. I have, over the past few months, tried to gain weight—and with some success. I weighed just 59 kilos a few months ago, but I know weigh over 62. I hope to reach 70kg in time; a feat which requires a great deal of calories.

I shall also try and hit the gym, though my student card has yet to arrive.

Parting Thoughts

Life here has so far proven interesting. The students are diverse and some have caught my attention; the courses are generally stimulating and interesting; and while there are some all but inevitable difficulties (particularly where it concerns bureaucracy) I am generally in good cheer.

Keep following the Magical Realm for more updates, photos, and important news about my writing. Until then, may the stars be with you...